Some years ago we had a local dealer who put a sticker over all the odometers on the forecourt stating the mileage was not verified. When removed all the odometer read zero.

Clearly did not bother the buying public since he was in business from the early 60's to the mid 90's when the site was redeveloped for housing.

If a car has been serviced outside the dealer network, then they can’t confirm its history. If you’re not happy , walk away and find another. Any dealer / trader has to verify within reason , a car’s history. If they can’t do that , then a disclaimer will apply.

Even though they could 'verify' it if the car was maintained solely at main dealerships of that other brand via its electronic service record, technically no dealership can 100% verify the mileage and maintenance record unless they themselves maintained it and trust every mechanic who's worked on it to:

a) do all work as described / required and;

b) to accurately record the work and mileage, assuming the previous owner(s) or others hadn't clocked the car the other 360-odd days of the year it wasn't with them.

Whether this dealer would charge any potential buyer to get a copy of its electronic maintenance record or expect them to do it themselves is I suppose down to them.

Personally I think they should at least reasonably endeavour to obtain such information, given it can't cost them that much, and surely would to some degree show potential punters they are doing due diligence to give buyers some peace of mind, even if they add a disclaimer.

If they are moving it on to auction, then fair enough, though I suspect at the moment, with second hand car prices being historically high, it might still be worth them spending a bit of effort on this, as I would've thought that a car with a reasonably documented maintenance and (hopefully) mileage history - even at another make's dealership network, is preferable to none at all, given older cars with a FSH are likely sought after, as long as they are otherwise in sound condition.

From reviews of a local smaller indie second hand dealer, all they seem to do is cosmetically spruce up 'older' cars and often reset the engine check light or even disable it to hide quite often a plethora of significant (and thus expensive) faults, making such cars no way a bargain.

What got my alarm bell tolling was that he didn't have a workshop to do any repair or maintenance work, and by many accounts didn't have much technical knowledge of the cars he was selling. What he was seemingly good at was 'sales patois', a rather 'Arthur Daley' type, though being far more honest (I'm afraid to say) with people of his 'own background', especially men, looking through the reviews.

It wouldn't bother me, to be honest. It's probably somewhere in the many sheets of paper I have been given buying approved used cars in the past. I would satisfy myself that the mileage seemed plausible, but not stress about a particular statement on a contract.

‘ there are more dishonest buyers than there are dishonest dealers! ’ Absolutely. How many times do we read on here of contributors advising people with faulty cars to offload them to WBAC? Guess where those cars then end up? On dealers’ forecourts.

I think that's a little extreme. I agree with the general thrust, but WBAC do purport to buy ANY car and are supposedly the experts. They subsequently apply a margin before selling on, and appear to be doing quite well.

Presumably, the majority of what they take in ends up at auction and is snapped up by your Arthur Daley types to sell on, again with a margin applied. That dealer is then responsible for selling it to an unsuspecting punter. WBAC, the auction house and the trader all have the opportunity to fully inspect the car and repair any issues but they don't because it would cost too much and take too long. That's fine, but their margin is there to cover the ones that come back to bite them.